Anton Mauve was a Dutch painter and a leading representative of The Hague School. The main subjects of his landscapes made in a realist style included peasants, outdoor animals like sheep, cows or horses, and nature.
Background
Anton Mauve was born as Anthonij Rudolf Mauve on September 18, 1838, in Zaandam city, Netherlands. He was a son of Willem Carel Mauve, a Mennonite chaplain and Elisabeth Margaretha Hirschig.
When Anton was a one-year-old child, his father relocated to Haarlem, where the boy spent his childhood.
Education
Anton Mauve began his artistic training as an apprentice of the painter Pieter Frederik van Os in Haarlem at the age of sixteen. Then, the young man received some painting lessons from the painter Wouter Verschuur whose main subject for his canvases were horses.
Later, Mauve developed his skills with Paul Gabriël by painting landscapes of Oosterbeek.
Career
Anton Mauve began his artistic career in 1871 when he came to the Hague and founded there his studio. Soon, he became a leader of The Hague School due to his simple but well-done landscapes in grey and silver palette.
The painter took an active part in the artistic life of the town and in 1876, he co-founded the international art society Hollandsche Teekenmaatschappij which main goal was to promote watercolour painting. Mauve also contributed to the development of another well-known art society by the time, the Pulchri Studio.
Since 1881, Mauve gave some painting lessons to van Gogh and helped him by renting a studio and providing him with money and painting materials. The collaboration was short – Anton stopped the training because of the van Gogh’s vicious character.
The next year, Anton Mauve started to visit the village of Lauren. By 1885 when he had become a well-known painter in his homeland and abroad, especially in America, he moved to the village. There, he gathered the group of landscapists among whom were Jozef Israëls and Albert Neuhuys, later known as “Dutch Barbizon.”
"I spent an afternoon and part of an evening at Mauve's [in the Hague] and saw many beautiful things in his studio. My own drawings interested Mauve more. He gave me a great many suggestions, which I'm glad of, and I've sort of arranged to pay him another visit fairly soon when I have some more studies. He showed me a whole batch of his studies and explained them to me — not sketches for drawings or designs for paintings but true study sheets, apparently insignificant. He wants me to start painting." Vincent van Gogh, a painter
Connections
Anton Mauve was married to Vincent van Gogh’s cousin Ariëtte Sophia Jeanette Carbentus. The couple had several children.